U.S. Moves Closer to Minority Majority

Cities and their surrounding suburbs are ground zero for the country’s changing racial and ethnic composition, with just a handful of metropolitan areas driving the nation’s demographic destiny, according to this report released today by demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution.

The U.S. has long been on its way toward becoming what demographers call a “majority minority” country — where whites of European ancestry make up less than 50% of the population. Between 2000 and 2010, minorities accounted for 98% of the population growth in large metropolitan areas. This rapid expansion has caused big shifts in racial composition: Between 1990 and 2010, the share of the white population in big metropolitan areas fell to 57% from 71%.

An earlier report from Mr. Frey showed that while “majority minority” status is still a few decades away, that day is already here for babies. “The new Census results show 49.8% of infants under age one are members of a race-ethnic minority — up from 42.4% in 2000,” Mr. Frey writes. “Given this trajectory, and the fact that the Census was taken well over a year ago, it is almost certain we have now ‘tipped’ racially, and more than half of all national births are minorities.” (See a map showing the difference between the minority population among babies and seniors.)